Senate pushes Protect College Sports Act vote to September amid women’s-sports dispute

The Senate adjourned for its summer recess early Aug. 8 without voting on the Protect College Sports Act, leaving lawmakers until September to resolve a dispute over whether the sweeping college-athletics bill could weaken existing state protections for women’s sports.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) called the postponement “the right call,” arguing that the pause gives Congress time to tighten “loose language” and “ensure the bill cannot be misused to undermine women’s sports laws.”

ADF also commended the senators, attorneys general, female athletes, and other Americans who pressed the issue. The group said it hoped to work with Congress and the White House on a solution.

The measure remains alive. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said lawmakers had “teed up” the bill for next month, and the Senate is scheduled to return Sept. 14. 

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the legislation would be among the chamber’s “first orders of business” and that supporters had “locked in a vote.”

The women’s-sports dispute centers on broad language in the bill referencing state laws that regulate athlete eligibility. Critics say the wording creates needless ambiguity and could be invoked against the approximately 27 state laws protecting women’s and girls’ sports on the basis of biological sex.

As Zeale News previously reported, CatholicVote warned senators that it would score a vote for the current version of the bill against them. The Catholic advocacy group urged lawmakers to add an explicit exception preserving state laws that reserve women’s teams for female athletes.

CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky argued in an Aug. 6 letter obtained by Zeale News that a provision in the bill is broad enough to endanger state eligibility protections. “Allies have offered a clear fix and have been repeatedly rebuffed,” he wrote.

Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., filed that proposed fix Aug. 6. Their one-page amendment would state that the federal preemption provision does not apply to a state or local policy prohibiting males from competing in women’s intercollegiate sports.

“Biological men should never be allowed in women’s sports or women’s locker rooms,” Hawley said. “We’ve got to make sure state laws protecting women stand.”

The White House and the bill’s sponsors dispute the critics’ reading. An Aug. 6 Office of White House Counsel memo concluded that the legislation “would not preempt state laws prohibiting men from participating in women’s sports.”

The September delay gives lawmakers more than a month to negotiate changes. If the Senate passes the bill, it would still need approval from the House before going to President Donald Trump, whose administration has said he would sign it.